… in a magazine. I’ll admit it since it’s not my current employer (although they would not be happy to hear of my near criminal spending in the past) and what the hell, it was the perfect photo and I can’t help it if David La Chapelle took it and once everyone agreed they wanted it I don’t have a leg to stand on to negotiate and guess what… DLC doesn’t negotiate.

Also, make sure you don’t credit him. You’ll have to pay 3 times that if you credit him.

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13 Comments

  1. Using good photos is worth, but the names of famous photographers is overrated. %99.8 percent of the people in the world don’t know who DLC is, and if they did they probably wouldn’t give a shit. Ask people outside of the biz f they can name a photographer, and maybe someone will say Ansel Adams.

    If it’s a perfect photo, that’s one thing, but paying for someone’s name is too oft a mistake in this biz. Victims of your own hype.

  2. damn thats nuts!

  3. You missed part of the point. I wasn’t allowed to use his name.

  4. The Bitter Photographer loves shooting stock. Windmills against dramatic skies, elderly couples laughing on the beach, scientist writing complicated formulas on glass. These are tried and true approaches to making great photographs. It worked in the 70s and the BP does not understand why it can’t keep working.

    In fact he does not understand all the hype around David La Chapple. Just because he created a unique vision that spawned many imitators and that his pictures defined an era doesn’t mean squat to BP. What does DLC have that BP doesn’t?

  5. When I first heard that sometime ago I thought that was weird. ” Why wouldn’t he want his name in?” But then some of the things he shot before he became a household name wasn’t very……. high profile.

    Oh and also if he traveled somewhere, you could bet he was going hang gliding with his camera!

  6. I didn’t miss that point, but I wasn’t very clear. My bad. I wasn’t criticizing you. I was criticizing the people that would use his name and the fact they’d pay 3 times for it.

  7. Good photo, but anyway, why do he thinks he is allowed to resize MY browser?

  8. Two words here:
    greed and ego

    He is high enough on his horse to say I deserve ten grand for re-use but I do not want to be associated with the magazine that publishes it (only their deep pockets). Question Anon PE – Was this a magazine that he would have shot for or had shot for in the past? Maybe I jumped the gun – Maybe he shot for you in the past nin which case I would find it odd that he not want ot be associated with it again. Regardless, there is no difference for DLC charging $10000 for usage than there is Paris Hilton getting $100,000 to show up and flog a new nightclub. You are paying for the name and nothing else – regardless of talent (present or not) and substance (again, present or not).

  9. Actually, it’s not greed OR ego. It’s just business. If having his photo in a magazine helps that magazine sell more magazines, then it’s a small investment. Besides, you could easily spend way more than that to commission and produce a DLC knockoff image for the magazine and if using DLC’s name brings the magazine an extra advertiser or two, then that’s also a small investment as well.

    Let’s face it, DLC can charge DLC-prices because he’s DLC. If you don’t like it, go become a famous photographer.

  10. No he wouldn’t have shot for the magazine or at least he hadn’t said yes yet to my attempts to give him an assignment. Advertisers and celebrities care who your photographers are and in the fashion business if you’re not working with the hot ones you don’t get ads.

  11. Yes Hans business is business (and since when has business not been about greed and ego, last time I checked it is all about greed and ego) but by requiring the magazine to not attach his name to the image it makes the point moot. Reuse is reuse, another magazine paid for the original meaning it has been seen before (and quite possibly many times). Having a lachapelle image in your mag does not mean more sales. People don’t rush out to by a magazine to see an image that has been seen before. Well very, very, few do not enough to matter – which leads into the ad sales and as we all know that is what drives a magazine to success.
    Sure advertisers care who shots for you but is the team selling the fact that you are using a DLC image seen before?

    And hey, I am not jumping on DLC’s rates or the magazines decsion to pay them but it is ego and greed when the anon PE has tried in vain numerous times to have him shoot for them yet totally say yes to reusing a shot if they agree to the fee.

    It’s like saying you are not good enough for my original work but heck, if you have the money I’ll take it if you want to use a shot I have in the bank. Just don’t tell anynone it was done by me.

  12. But he’s so funny! His second season DVD was the highest seller ever. I didn’t even know Dave Chappelle took photos. But hey, when you’re so famous people put “La” in front of your last name to make it sound fancier…

    Anon (above) is right. My roommate thought a moment before naming Ansel Adams.

    All seriousness aside, the shrewd person will charge whatever outrageous sum is possible. It may be to laugh at others, amuse oneself, milk poseurs, scare people away, or maybe for the hell of it.

    And buyers are sucked in by the cachet.

    I heard of a wedding photographer (apologies to all you real photographers) who wanted out. He kept bumping his price by ten thousand dollars! And people kept booking him.

    Of course, we know PEs don’t fall for any of that.

    But what do I know from reciprocity failure?

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